Another unusual image for the Visual Verse April 2020 issue, Vol. 7, Chapter 6. You can find my poem on page 42 or you can link directly to the poem, entitled ‘Lockdown Blues Reds and Greens‘. Linking to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.
Tag: Open Link Night
Duck – a poem in Visual Verse
The image Visual Verse selected for the March 2020 issue, Vol. 7, Chapter 5, was an unusual one. At first I didn’t know what to make of the photograph by Ryan McGuire, but I managed to write something in the given hour and word limit before going off-line to visit my daughter and grandson. Once […]
The One Who Does Not Go Straight Home
I am the hare who does not go straight home. I relish the cool dew on my whiskers, the wind in ears and scut. Dawn steals past the farmer’s gate and I follow in its honeyed wake, zig-zagging fields, up and down hills, among the yellow daffodils, too full of giddiness to go straight home […]
In the Rusting Sky – a poem in Visual Verse
I’ve been submitting poems to the Visual Verse online anthology since 2016, and am delighted to have another poem featured in the February 2020 issue, Vol. 7, Chapter 4. The inspiration is an amazing image by Omid Armin. As you will see, I’m in great company, with Jane Dougherty featured on the previous page. You can […]
Black Tulips
Glossy goblets in the florist’s shop, rare tulips, brimming with power and strength, constrained like Rilke’s panther, stained with the ink of witching hours. Oh, for a pot of midnight flowers, scented with soil, not a bouquet of beauties with stems cut and wilting in their pain, but petals of black velvet that bloom again […]
Only a Rehearsal
This week I’ve been training. All I’ve had to do is sit and watch for birds. Mostly it was raining; feathered creatures sat in the hedge and observed me through raindrops watching them through raindrops that plopped and spat on the windows. A pair of robins and some finches ganged up with a thrush and […]
Breaking the Silence of January
After the revelry of Christmas and New Year, the silence of January is solid as a block of ice, occasionally melting into shifting swathes of mist grey as wood pigeons and musty house mice. No gentle coo, whistle or twitter of birds, the day is mute; no body warmth or human words until the fire’s […]
The Moment When You Realise
You have been a familiar landscape to yourself, all these years of seeing your reflection in mirrors, shop windows, the still surface of a pond. You thought you knew the prospect of your frown, the parallel lines of your smile and the curves of your hills and valleys. Until one day, at a family gathering, […]
Snake in the Grass
It is a grass snake. It is curled in autumn leaves. It is autumn leaves. In it is a curled grass snake. A curled autumn snake? Is it? It is leaves in grass! It is curled in grass. It is a snake autumn leaves. Curled leaves in grass. It is a snake. It is autumn. […]
Gentle Winter Reminder
Snow has been falling for half an hour and already the garden is covered with white. Slumped by the log store, only the tip of an old sack is visible as I approach, feet firmly in my wellies, one sock creeping down to my toes. The logs are frozen to the touch, landing in the […]
writing in north norfolk 